How To Choose A Domain Name: Getting The Basics Right

by: Avara Web Media
Posted in: Domain Names, Free Marketing Tips
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When you start any online venture, probably the most important decision will be the domain name. We cannot emphasise enough how crucial it is to take your time and do the research here – get it wrong and your business will be disadvantaged permanently but get it right and you’ll always be one step ahead of the competition.

It’s worth understanding the basics of domain names and we have a page of domain name information on our website which we’d recommend taking a look at to grasp the basics.

Essentially you have two viable options with the selection domain name – branding or keywords.

1. If you go for brand then we’d suggest a .com and the name needs to be unique, memorable and ideally as short as possible. You don’t necessarily even need the keyword keywords in the domain so it could be your name or even a word that doesn’t immediately have any relevance to your industry (Examples being Amazon.com, Ebay.com and even Google.com – none of these domains hint at what the website is about).

2. If you go for a keyword-rich domain then you need to have keywords that are actually being searched for with no extra words. Something like ‘buy-red-shoes.com’ would fit that criteria. We’d suggest that you don’t want more than three keywords in the domain otherwise it starts to look like you’ve chosen the domain purely for SEO purposes (not cool). A 100% keyword-rich domain will help to get the website ranked in a better position far more quickly than if you choose a branded domain.

It’s worth adding a note of caution with keyword-rich domains – as your website grows and develops, if you’ve chosen a keyword based domain, will it allow you to expand into other sectors? If your website is called ‘buy-red-shoes.com’ and you want to start selling Blue hats, your domain name is going to look highly irrelevant.

We have had success with both types of domain so there is no right or wrong choice as long as you stick to the basic principle of choosing either a brand or keyword-rich domain.

For more information about domain names and Internet marketing. call us on 01252 416 222.

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